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The Grand Inquisitor
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17 Feb 2024, 6:23 am

Britannica wrote:
Determinism entails that, in a situation in which a person makes a certain decision or performs a certain action, it is impossible that he or she could have made any other decision or performed any other action. In other words, it is never true that people could have decided or acted otherwise than they actually did.


Suzie wakes up in the morning and is faced with the choice of which cereal she'll eat for breakfast. She has five different cereals in her cupboard, and she chooses cornflakes.

How did this choice occur?

In order to make this choice, cornflakes has to exist as a cereal, she has to have access to that cereal in her country, she probably needed to already have it in her cupboard before the morning. She might be in the mood for cornflakes, or simply disinterested in the other options available. Her hormones or mental state could even affect the choice.

A myriad of factors coalesce together to create the decision or outcome, and all of those exact same factors being combined in the exact same way will always result in the exact same outcome.

We can rewind Suzie's morning as many times as we want, and if all factors remain untampered with and exactly the same, Suzie will always make the exact same choice in that moment in time, because the choice is the sum of all factors involved and everything that has come before it to lead up to that point.

That is to say, even though there are theoretically other choices that can be made at any given moment in time, there is only ever one choice that will be made, and it will be the choice that the being perceives will best serve its interests.



belijojo
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17 Feb 2024, 7:10 am

As far as this example is concerned, it works fine


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aghogday
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17 Feb 2024, 12:40 pm



Is the Feather the Wind Or
Is the Wind The Feather; Well,

The 'Forrest Gump' Movie Answers

The Question of Free Will and Determinism

With Both;

In Other Words,
We Have Relative Free

Will; We are Both the Feather and The Wind;
No Different Than How The Wind Flies the Bird

And The Currents of the River Swim The Fish;

If We Truly Let Go And Make Our Best Effort in Life;

We Tend to Reduce Anxiety By Not Trying to Materially

Reduce Reality, Imposing So Much Illusory Order; For Instance,

We Create SideWalks; We Walk One Way; Repetitively So Indeed,

We Develop Ergonomic Injuries ThiS Way; Cumulatively, Over

the Course

of Our Lives

As We No Longer
Forage More in 360 Degrees
Versus Straight Ahead in Sidewalk Life;

Indeed, Much Of Our Pre-Determined Lives
Are Imposed By Our Cultures, Collectively So
As Tradition That Can Be Literally Insane; Like

Being Glued to 6 Inch Screens, Even Driving a Car,
Losing the Overall View of the Horizon as the Predator

Eats Us Ahead, We Never See The Oncoming Car Ending Our Life.

It's True, Relatively

Speaking, Some Human
Beings Exercise More Relative
Free Will Than Others; It's Easy

To Get Lost in 'The Order,' All
The Materially Reduced Illusions

And Experience A Much Smaller ReaLiTY iNdeed...

People Have Often Asked me Why i Write The Way i Do;

Why i Spiral Dance in Public The Way i Do; And Why It's

Truly Impossible to Predict What i Will Do Next, as Far

As Specifically Every Move of Free Dance And Every Word

of Song in Free

Verse Poetry;

Of Course i Am the Wind;

If, Someone Traps me in

A Jar of CuLTuRaL Tradition,

i No Longer Exist; At Least Not
With This Much Relative Free Will...

Nah, i Don't Really Find it Surprising,
Some Folks Insist They Have Zero Free Will...

Self Fulfilling

ProphecY iNDeeD

And Part of the Walls
Ceilings and Floors of
CuLTuRaL TRaDiTioNS...

As A Side Note, A Human Being
Exercising Really An Incredible
Amount of Relative Free Will Now
in A 'Dark Way' Is Donald J Trump
As He Understands How Little Relative Free

Will Others

Who He Rules
Over NoW As His
Minions Have, Overall,
Supporting Such an Overtly
Despicable Leader; Of Course,

'The Minions' Series of Movies
Already Predicted What 'Minions' Do;
It is Fairly Easy for Demographics With
Very Little Relative Free Will Lost in Vast

Structures
of Tradition
Enclosed by
Walls, Ceilings, And Floors,
Such as the Fox News Channel, Hehe...



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ToughDiamond
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17 Feb 2024, 4:33 pm

Yes I'm a determinist. I think that any decision I make can in principle be traced back to causes over which I had no control. If I'm a kind person, it's not because of an active decision on my part to be kind, it's just in my nature. Ditto if I'm a cruel person.

It's similar if I choose what breakfast to have, or if I choose no breakfast at all. Certain foods happen to appeal to me or not because of built-in responses which are all predetermined. I can't help it if I don't feel hungry, if I fancy an egg on toast, if I recently had an uncomfortable heartburn and am therefore wary of eating a large, fatty meal, if I have a tendency to stick to the default routine breakfast, or if I'm feeling a bit bored with the same old groundhog day and am eager for something different, if I'm feeling too tired and lazy to do any more than grab a slice of raisin loaf, or if some capricious desire comes over me to have a salad.

But I experience an illusion of control, and I tend to run with it. I often think as if I can change my behaviour by an act of will. Sometimes it's a comfort to me to accept that I don't have to control myself, that I can relax and just let myself do whatever I'm programmed to do. After all, it's got me this far without any great harm, so it seems I can trust the programming. But most of the time it feels weird and uncomfortable to see myself as just an automaton. Much of the time I don't see myself as either one or the other, I just get on with my life without wondering whether I'm really the driver or the passenger.



auntblabby
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17 Feb 2024, 4:55 pm

if free will exists, why does it fail so many people? is it that it requires perfect rationality at all times, which eludes 99+% of humanity?



belijojo
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17 Feb 2024, 6:00 pm

auntblabby wrote:
if free will exists, why does it fail so many people? is it that it requires perfect rationality at all times, which eludes 99+% of humanity?

I'm sorry, could you describe your problem in detail? I don't understand its internal logic.

Everyone is satisfied when the time they make a decision, even if they often regret it.If you are talking about how not to regret, ,, tolerance for the past yourself or perfect rationality, one of them is enough.


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auntblabby
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18 Feb 2024, 12:32 am

belijojo wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
if free will exists, why does it fail so many people? is it that it requires perfect rationality at all times, which eludes 99+% of humanity?

I'm sorry, could you describe your problem in detail? I don't understand its internal logic.

Everyone is satisfied when the time they make a decision, even if they often regret it.If you are talking about how not to regret, ,, tolerance for the past yourself or perfect rationality, one of them is enough.

there are people that, no matter how hard and long they think about something, they still make a decision that is objectively wrong in terms of its counter-productivity. i've experienced this repeatedly in my life.



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18 Feb 2024, 5:04 am

You can make any choice you want but you can't choose what choice you want to make.


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ToughDiamond
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18 Feb 2024, 3:20 pm

^
“Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)



BillyTree
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19 Feb 2024, 2:47 am

ToughDiamond wrote:
^
“Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)


Yes. That's what I tried to rephrase.


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ToughDiamond
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19 Feb 2024, 3:47 am

BillyTree wrote:
ToughDiamond wrote:
^
“Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)


Yes. That's what I tried to rephrase.

You caught the gist of it well enough.



aghogday
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19 Feb 2024, 1:12 pm



Per the Term 'Determinism' As that Applies to Nature in General, Wiki Provides Some Guidance Below:

"Another foundational assumption to quantum mechanics is that of free will,[81] which has been argued[82] to be foundational to the scientific method as a whole. Bell acknowledged that abandoning this assumption would both allow for the maintenance of determinism as well as locality.[83] This perspective is known as superdeterminism, and is defended by some physicists such as Sabine Hossenfelder and Tim Palmer.[84]

More advanced variations on these arguments include quantum contextuality, by Bell, Simon B. Kochen and Ernst Specker, which argues that hidden variable theories cannot be "sensible", meaning that the values of the hidden variables inherently depend on the devices used to measure them.

This debate is relevant because there are possibly specific situations in which the arrival of an electron at a screen at a certain point and time would trigger one event, whereas its arrival at another point would trigger an entirely different event (e.g. see Schrödinger's cat—a thought experiment used as part of a deeper debate).

Thus, quantum physics casts reasonable doubt on the traditional determinism of classical, Newtonian physics in so far as reality does not seem to be absolutely determined. This was the subject of the famous Bohr–Einstein debates between Einstein and Niels Bohr and there is still no consensus.[85][86]"

Per The Human Experience, And Our Abilities to Materially Reduce

The Processes of Our Conscious and Subconscious Minds as

Science Suggests Our Word Thinking Conscious Minds Only

Comprise About A Half of a Percent of the Whole, This 'Will Thingy'

In Terms of Humanity Is surely more a Work of Art Than Science as
Science Simply

Doesn't Have

The Tools to
Entirely Reduce
Conscious and
Subconscious Processes of Our Existence;

However, Of Course, Some Folks Give it a Shot;

One of my Favorites is Iain McGilchrist, Well Respected
Oxford Fellow Scholar, Neuro-Psychiatrist, and Researcher

On the Processes of How Our Minds Relate to Reality for Decades on end;

In Short,

Will Is Not Free;

It Must Be 'Earned;'

It is Both Nurture and
Nature And Relative Indeed.

The Difference Between me and my
Wife When A Vehicle Passes Dangerously

Between the Next Car in Front of Us, Weaving

Recklessly As Such With No Regard to 'Reason;'

My Wife Goes 'Nuclear' Godzilla Style, and i Retain

the Moderation of my Emotions and Senses as Cool

As What Keeps Nuclear Plants Under Control, Hehe;

Is it Free Will; F No, i've Earned it Through a Practice of
Moving Meditation And Free Verse Poetry Regulating my Emotions
And Integrating Senses Through a Practice of 19,488 Miles of Public Dance

And 12.6 MiLLioN Words of FLoWinG Free Verse Poetry in 126 Months; Per the
Empirical

Evidence
of Such

in Practice;

Typically, in the General
Public, Folks Ask How They Can
Arrive Where i am Now; my Only

Suggestion WiLL Be Indeed Will is Not Free,

You Develop This Excellence in Regulating Your
Emotions and Integrating Senses for the Best Potential

Future Reactions to the Environment in Life Through the Course
of An Entire Life Existence; if You Spend Your Life Glued to A Screen of

Facebook News Feeds
And Tik Tok AS Such

This Ability May Turn

to Mush Losing Most

All Potential for Actually
Earning More Relative Free Will
That May Be Measured Empirically

As Real Life Benefits, Like Financial Independence
And Never Being Lonely For Loving Attention; True, As

'Emotional Intelligence' Supersedes All So Called Word Think...

And of Course As Science Shows, Relatively Speaking, Our Emotions
Precede and

Direct Most
All Of What

We Give Reasons
For What We Do Next...

If We Are Going to Materially
Reduce our Existence to Only
Word Think, We Will Be Surely
Be Missing about 99.5 Percent

of Our Other Human Potentials;

Chances Are, Being More Restricted
to Left Brain Processes of Life That Are
Useful For Grasping Tools And Detail Think Indeed;

Sadly though,
Missing
Potentially

A Much Larger
Experience of REALiTY;

Yep, In Terms of Enhancing
Relative Free Will New, Actually
Earning it too; That is of Course Influenced
Now Not Only By Nurture Yet Nature too; Some

Folks, Have An Entirely Larger Mountain to Climb ThiS WaY
From Birth; However, With Appropriate 'Mountain Climbing Practice'

They May Far
Exceed Those
Only 'Gifted' at Birth;

YeP, It Was A Very Long
Climb For me; Yes, Arriving
At Age 53 And A Moral oF A Story
Is Ya WiLL Never Ever Stop Climbing

New

If Ya Wanna
Keep Arriving Now..:)



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